ABSTRACT
Joseph Chamberlain’s spectacular attempt to convert the country to tariff reform dominated the British political stage from 1903 until the general election of 1905, and has been a subject of continuing interest to economic, social and political historians ever since. It has, however, been surprisingly neglected by students of economic thought and policy despite the fact that during these years the entire country was called upon to take sides ‘over an abstract not to say highly technical economic theory.’1 There are striking parallels between this episode in British history and the sensational presidential campaign of 1896 in the United States, in which public controversy centred on the respective merits of gold and silver as the basis of the nation’s currency.2 In both instances the economists had an unusually favourable opportunity to apply their expertise to a problem of outstanding public importance, and for this reason alone the tariff reform debate deserves more serious study than it has hitherto received from historians of economics.
